County School's STEM Initiative Underway With 75 Students On Chattanooga State Campus

“Support our STEM Initiative” is the message that Tracey Carisch brought to the Brainerd/East Brainerd Chamber of Commerce meeting Tuesday morning. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Adeptness in those skills has been identified as deficient from students coming out of the public school system in Tennessee, yet it is competency in these areas that businesses are seeking.

Funded by grants from Battelle Memorial Institute a charitable trust and from the U.

The STEM school in Chattanooga is located on the campus of Chattanooga State Community College and has a freshman class of 75 the first year with a plan to add 75 more, for each of next two years, eventually having an enrollment of 300. Grades are from 9-12, and are completely paperless with each student working from an iPad. Teaching is done in “flip classrooms” where students watch videos before the class and the teachers help apply the video to real world situations.

Ms. Carisch said “the goal is to get rid of the question - When am I ever going to use this?” The hope is that students will get a real understanding for the subject matter. The Hub aims to integrate processes used in the STEM schools, into all schools and to make science and math a priority.